"..so angelic are the days to lead me to keep walking, however if I stumble, nonetheless to keep leaning toward the duck here and the duck there.." There is this place in us all. Read this gorgeous, vulnerable, lyric CNF by Shome Dasgupta.

“No guns today,” she remarks, the way she might notice her clothes or some other common thing she knows. “No lice” (by that she means ICE). It startles me that she sees in this way, but I think she is right about the moment. Somewhere on a city street brevitymag.com/current-issu...

“Not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true.”

My daughter turned our Poppy into a Norman Rockwell painting. Of course, like all pictures, it doesn’t tell the whole story. She can be naughty and she can be nice. Feels like the holidays are a time for retouch. When we want to be our best, see the best in this world. Wishing that for all of us.

"The most important thing is that you be a good person and you live by the golden rule of do unto others. If you live by that, that's all I care about." ~ Rob Reiner

Wonderful recs! Thank you, @charhamrick.bsky.social!💙📚

Donald Trump is showing us what's possible. Anything is possible. The president can send troops into cities. The president can make $5 billion off of crypto in plain sight. The president can tear down an entire section of the White House and build an Epstein ballroom.

My most woke opinion is that I recognize how people and groups have been harmed, continue to be harmed, and that it’s good and right to acknowledge that, to make amends, to do better. Geez.

What can one person do? Chris Kluwe, a retired NFL player running for office in California, speaks to what so many of us feel. I hear the voice of an American who just wants a better world, who wants a United States. Synopsis- We all need to do something. open.substack.com/pub/thetruth...

💯💯

"The Latin root of notice is to begin knowing," On Looking: Poet Lia Purpura on the Art of Noticing www.themarginalian.org/2025/09/04/l...

“We know that sky without ever having stood beneath it. We know that field without ever having walked through it. “ This gorgeous essay, about loss and nature, about a screensaver photo and what connects us.

There are no roses, and the appropriate word is Gang.

Remembrance. Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/a...

This was so, so good. Eli’s universe is the reality of our hard knocks and the dreaminess of our hopes. The truth of our ugliness and our beauty, our trying and failing and trying again at life. Group hug!! www.imdb.com/title/tt1039...

AMERICA: “It’s a mental health issue.” REST OF THE WORLD: “We have those. But don’t have mass shootings.” AMERICA: “It’s video games.” WORLD: “We have those too. But don’t have mass shootings.” AMERICA B: “It’s cause they took Jesus out of the classroom.” WORLD: “God, you’re stupid.”

There's a reason why sports teams don't chant "I believe that we will lose" before a game, a reason so obvious that I'm pretty sure it needs no explanation. Which is why it makes my head explode when people surrender in advance verbally, which they do all the time about politics.

if you are ever tempted to write off the residents of a "red" (i.e., gerrymandered) state and say "set them adrift, let them secede, they deserve what they voted for", you are missing all the thousands of stories like this where the human beings in those states are pushing back every single day

This CNF gem by @tracieadams.bsky.social “One plank for each remembered joy. One screw for each regret loosened from my chest.”

"She allows her eyes to drift over the now meaningless words, through her mind, out of her head. She feeds the pages into the shredder." Read this wonderful story by @charhamrick.bsky.social! It's little, but it's a lot. ❤️ www.macqueensquinterly.com/MacQ29/Hamri...

@ilyakaminsky.bsky.social remembers discovering poetry as deaf child in Ukraine: “The language of poetry speaks to all our senses… It can speak, privately, to all of us. It is visceral.”

"What did it matter if she saved one lizard?" Kiss: Ellen Bass's Stunning Ode to the Courage of Tenderness as an Antidote to Helplessness www.themarginalian.org/2025/07/26/e...

David Byrne came to my band’s show at a gay bar in Bed-Stuy and sang This Must Be The Place with us and I still haven’t processed it

“Inspired by her father’s inability to read and write Dolly started her Imagination Library in 1995 for the children within her home county. Today, her program spans five countries and gifts millions of free books each month to children around the world.” 📚 imaginationlibrary.com

“My new face will not be aged, because looking in the mirror at a wrinkly face fishes out the bloated, drowned corpse of the past and turns it over into the future, which you also do not want.” What a stinger this story is. xraylitmag.com/forever-by-s...

The United Nations’ highest court issued a legal opinion stating that nations are obligated to take action against climate change, warning that neglecting this responsibility could breach international law.

“You may also notice a recurring glitch called shame. This is not a bug. It is the entire operating system.” Calling all humans. You tender beings. Read this!

Summertime writer training breakfast.

June issue is up, and it’s a treasure trove! third-street-review.org

third-street-review.org/fiction/ My story in Third Street Review. Second story down. Thank you, Rina Palumbo.

“I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was,” Sahil Lavingia told NPR's Juana Summers.

You are going to love our new piece from @catherinebuck.bsky.social! Check out “In Waiting.” lost-balloon.com/2025/06/25/i...

Good morning. I don’t mind the clouds. Not one bit.

"The real artistry comes in revision: the writer striving to make everything count. Working the lines over and over to bring the work into shapeliness, while also seeking to make the whole thing seem effortless. As if it was all just breathed out in a sigh." ~ Richard Bausch

Excited to share this very personal essay about a beloved aunt. I would love it if you'd give it a read. www.ekphrastic.net

In honor of Brian Wilson, @jamesfolta.com‬ pairs books with Beach Boys songs to keep you company on your next summer excursion.

“Another bus came a few minutes later. I got on; the man didn't. I was grateful for that. The driver said Hello in a friendly sort of way, and I said it back. He doesn’t know, I thought, that I was just crazy. I moved away before I could blow my cover.” Big love for this CNF by Ella Harrigan. ❤️

So I see that my writing community here seems to have dissipated a bit. Every once in a while I go back to the other place, that was once so great, I did not close my account, and I see many are still there. Try as I might, I just can’t do it. Oh well. To everything there is a season.

Look what I have. So excited to read these stories. Congratulations to all these writers and to @dianegotauthor.bsky.social for bringing them together.

"I’m excited to announce that I’ll be celebrating another turn around the sun with a military parade through our neighborhood. You and your families are all invited. If you can’t make it, no worries. Not a big deal! Just RSVP 'no,' and I will simply have you arrested."

“They also lit several Waymo driverless taxis on fire and briefly shut a freeway. Still, much of Los Angeles is living as normal. It’s supposed to be 77 and sunny today.” This from my NYT newsletter this am. It’s so easy to live as if everything is normal, especially when it’s 77 and sunny.

"Moon has been dreaming about Theia, careening through deep space like a spectacle." Wow, this extraordinary story (and that last paragraph!) by @dawnsteffler.bsky.social in @inkfishmagazine.bsky.social 💙💙💙

"In the 21st century, we're witnessing the undoing of any sense of obligation to the dispossessed." www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p0H...

“Gentry refused to reveal what was thrown off the bridge, believing it incidental to the indifference expressed in the face of tragedy.”

June blooms.